


Mimas Cowboy

by Kahvi



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Angst and Humor, M/M, Sex Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-30
Updated: 2014-09-30
Packaged: 2018-02-19 10:25:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2384972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kahvi/pseuds/Kahvi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When David Lister gets stuck on Mimas after a particularly drunken 25th birthday celebration, he has to find a way to make some easy money. Sex work seems like the perfect solution, but one day, he gets a particularly odd customer...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mimas Cowboy

**Author's Note:**

> For the lovely R.

«Excuse me…»

Lister adjusted his still-unwashed t-shirt, and sighed. Whoever was speaking was half-hidden in the prepetual vape-cloud of Mimas’s red lights district - also known as The Smoke, for obvious reasons - but the voice was definitely male. Just his luck. “You looking fer a good time, mate?”

The voice huffed. “I most definitely am not,” it added, in a thick, nasal accent Lister recognized as Ionian. One of Lister’s former girlfriends had an ex from Io, and whenever Lister got the flu, she’d cancel their dates, muttering something about ‘flashbacks’. He’d never quite understood why. 

“Then yer wasting my time. Stop scaring away my customers.” Lister peered out into The Smoke, as though anyone waiting out would be visible if they were more than a foot away. 

“What customers? I’ve been here for half an hour, and I’ve seen tiddly squat. They’re not exactly beating down your see-through plasticrete door, miladdo.” 

_Miladdo?_ “That’s hardly your business though, is it?”

“It’s barely your business, from the looks of it.” The stranger stepped into the light, and Lister burst out laughing. “What?” He sneered, making matters worse as his upper lip vibrated with rage.

“That,” Lister spluttered, “is the least convincing mustache I have ever seen in my life.”

“I’m not surprised,” the Ionian grunted, smoothing the ridiculous stripe of hair down self-consciously, “what are you; sixteen? Seventeen?” 

“Twenty five.” Lister straightened, ignoring the strain in his lower back. He’d been standing for hours, with nothing to show for it. It had been a slow night, but then, so was every night. 

“Really?” The guy sounded genuinely surprised, and Lister bristled. 

“What; you think a seventeen year old kid would be out here?” Lister was getting a very bad vibe from this smegger. And it wasn’t his overpoweringly cloying aftershave. “Listen, I think you should get out of here and let me do my thing, yeah? If there’s something yer looking for that ye don’t want to say, there’s an android brothel up past Reynolds Street; they-“

“I’m not here for sex, you impertinent gimboid!” 

“Well, I am! So I’d appreciate it if you stopped wasting my time, guy.” 

“I’m here to… to offer you some business advice.” 

“Eh?” Lister looked the man up and down critically. Beyond the mustache and the nervous twitch in his long, sallow face, there was the way his feet kept shuffling like he was doing the Calisto Two-Step, and the shoddy cut of his cheap, fake denim jeans; the kind sold by the pair in little stalls outside the rowdier downtown bars, for patrons who had lost their own during the course of an interesting evening. His shirt was clearly inside out, like he was trying to hide a company or uniform logo. Lister saw guys like this every night, though never quite so close up, nor quite so pathetic-looking. They came down on their lunch breaks or three hour shore leaves, with no time to change out of their work clothes and not enough guts to be seen buying drugs or sex or dodgy AR sims or ride Segways as themselves, despite all of the above being perfectly legal on Mimas. That's why people came here, after all. That was how _Lister_ had managed to end up here with a passport in the name of Emily Birkenstein; their immigration control was about as good as the average Mimian’s impulse control. Anyway, you'd see these guys skulking about, hemming and hawing and anxiously brushing bad insta-extension hair away from their sunglassed faces, hurrying in and out of the little cubicles Lister and his colleagues worked out of, then even faster into the surrounding bars to pretend what had just happened, had not happened. This guy, though...   
"Yes." He coughed, a little desperately. “ _Business advice._ ”

Lister’s eyes widened. Oh smegging hell, it was like the shirt and the trousers and the mustache he kept having to press back on with his fingers; it was _code_. “Business advice,” he repeated, deflating a little with each syllable. “Yeah, sure man. C’mon in.”

The sigh of relief from behind him as Lister stepped into the room beyond practically shook the little booth.

* * *

There were as many jobs on this smeg-forsaken moon as there were drunken tourists, workers and JMC crew on leave, and Lister had tried nearly all of them trying to pay his way off it. There were more bars and strip clubs and casinos and AR-joints than there were hotels; few visitors bothered wasting their time sleeping. All these people needed to be moved about, frequently because most of them couldn’t do their own walking if it was a good night, so that was Lister’s first quick-money-idea. He drove a hopper for about a week, until one overly chatty passenger kept bragging about the money he was making in the Red Lights District. Lister had considered stripping, but he didn’t have the money for a proper wardrobe (the fact that stripping required a wardrobe had initially surprised him), but for whatever reason, selling sex had never occurred to him. Well, why not? He liked having it, and the work had to be easy enough; certainly easier than chasing fares all night, sometimes literally, when they ran off without paying. And anyway, he’d always been told he was pretty good at it. 

Of course, as it turned out, being good at it didn’t matter much when there was half a mile of competition available. 

“Come on in,” Lister said, redundantly. There was hardly anywhere else for the guy to go, other than back outside. The little booth could barely hold one person, though to Lister it felt quite roomy after weeks spent in a locker. The guy wasn’t bad looking now that he’d stopped being so frantically self-aware. Tall-ish, a little gangly, but he had some meat on him too; it wasn’t all bone and sinew. Lister didn’t care much for men, on the whole; it was more a matter of not saying no if there was nothing else on offer. Sex was sex, wasn’t it? People weren’t all that different, he’d found, even when they looked it, or liked to think so. Captain Personality here, for example, was all too easy to read; he practically screamed ‘horny and repressed’. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time Lister had to deal with that. “Why don’t ye sit down,” he suggested. “Make yerself comfortable.” To his surprise, the guy agreed. OK, maybe he was the sort who liked taking orders. Took all kinds, and Lister knew how to deal with that too. 

“All right.” The guy sat on the very edge of the bed, as though afraid he might contract something if he came into full contact with the sheets. Honestly, Lister wasn’t sure if he were wrong; they’d come with the booth, and though Lister dutifully steri-sprayed them after every – infrequent – visit, there was just something about the dark beige color that didn’t seem right. 

Judging the move to be fairly safe, Lister sat down next to him. No panic attacks, no sudden yelling and bursting out the door - so far, so good. Still, might be a good idea to get the formalities sorted before they began. Lister coughed, unconvincingly, and pulled out a battered zettle from the narrow space between the bed and the bedside table. He held it up in front of the stranger questioningly, and to his relief, the guy immediately pressed his thumb to the plate. He didn’t even look at the dollarpound amount. Lister raised an eyebrow, but quickly stashed the machine away (not that anyone could get anything out of it without his own living, verbal consent). He leaned back, expectantly. He didn’t suspect that someone like this would make the first move, but at the same time you had to be careful, with skittish goits like this. “What… er….” For one, you never knew what might offend them. 

“What?” The guy just stared and swallowed, like a pale frog caught in someone’s headlights. 

“You wanted to….” Lister had to pinch himself not to roll his eyes, “talk about business?” 

“Yes. Business. Important… business advice.”

Lister nodded, more patiently than he felt. 

“Can’t be too easy, running a successful business out here.”

“Well, no. Since you ask.” 

“Perhaps, what you need… miladdo…” The guy kept licking his lips. It was distracting. 

“Yeah?”

“Perhaps, what you need…”

Lister settled closer, leaning in. “Go on.”

“Is a properly set-up, long term marketing plan.” 

It took all of Lister’s not considerable self-control to keep from tearing up the duvet. For smeg’s sake; he’d _paid already_ ; there was no need to keep up the charade! Who was he hiding from; there were only the two of them in here! “Is that,” he managed, “all?”

“Well no, of course not.”

Lister kicked off his boots – not always a winning move, but the AC was fairly effective in here, and there was always the steri-spray if things got too funky. “Maybe you’d like to get more comfortable?”

“I’m fine, thank you.”

“Right.” He could, Lister pondered, just chat to the guy for a few minutes and throw him out, but he’d heard stories; that rarely went over well. These idiots wanted sex, but they needed to be dragged into it by the nosehairs, and were happy to pay for the convenience. They were also more than happy to drag those who didn’t provide the convenience through Mimas’s shoddy court system. Twonkers, the lot of them , but again… Lister gave the nervously twitching, pale, reedy body a second look. There was something about the eyes, definitely. Oh, smeg it. He lunged, pressing the guy back against the bed, forcing his lips open with his own, and Space, if that didn’t work! Suddenly he was being grabbed and held down forcibly – not in a bad way, not in a bad way at _all_ \- the guy’s knee pressing between his legs. How was Lister suddenly underneath him; hadn’t Lister been the one to press _him_ down? This guy was stronger than he looked! Not that Lister was complaining. 

On the list of things he hadn’t been expecting – and it was a long list – was the stranger’s hand making its way into his trousers. “Uh,” Lister said, meaning to add ‘easy’, but the words wouldn’t quite come out. His cock, on the other hand, soon did, and it had quite its own opinion of the proceedings, thank you very much. As it usually knew what it was doing, Lister let it do its thing, and settled back, realizing that his mouth no longer had a probing tongue in it. This, he further noted, craning his neck to look down, was because the tongue in question was busy licking at his exposed belly. “Hey,” Lister gasped, “I’m… glad yer enjoying yerself and all, but I don’t really-“

The stranger looked up. His face looked _very_ different in this light. Older, for one; Lister would have placed him at around 30, when he showed up outside, but in here, being stared down like this, he wondered where on Earth he’d gotten that idea. The guy was 40, if he was a day. Smeg, his eyes looked 50, all by themselves. The mustache had fallen off at some point along the way. “What,” he said, voice low, deep, and barely there. 

“Never mind.” 

“How old are you?”

“I told you. Twenty five.”

“You look about seventeen. Younger, even. Ridiculous.” 

“Um.”

“What?” 

“Could you…” Lister squirmed, trying to lift his hips. It was almost impossible; the guy was heavier than he looked, too. If he hadn’t been so smegging turned on, Lister might have worried about all this. 

“You look amazing.” He turned towards Lister’s straining cock, as though he’d only just noticed it, and seemed to collapse, slightly. “Oh, goiting hell…”

“Eh?”

“I need this.” The man wrapped his lips around Lister’s hot, pulsing head. Lister hadn’t had anyone blow him in _months_ ; certainly not while working here, and it’s not like he’d forgotten, it not being the sort of thing you forget, but you couldn’t remember feelings could you, not properly. It felt… it felt like someone sucking at his cock like it was the only way they could survive. It was a bit much, actually; much too much, much too soon. It wasn’t like he was going to come in just-

_“Ohsmeg”_

The guy fell back, and for a moment Lister wondered if he’d hurt himself. Then the truth hit, like a damp cloth to the face. Euphoria quickly gave way to irritation once again, then frustration. The guy was still leaning over him, on all fours and panting, saliva dripping unsexily from the corners of his mouth. _Just_ saliva, more’s the pity. Well, there was nothing doing. Lister grabbed his erection and began to stroke, wincing a little at how dry it was, already. He’d heard of being sucked dry, but that was generally said to be more pleasurable than this. 

“No!” 

Lister’s hand was not so much peeled as licked off; the guy, for reasons entirely his own, was going in for seconds. Thank Space! Lister moaned, pushing up against the tight grip on his thighs, struggling to press further up into that heat – and something gave, and he was _in_ , taken in to the hilt, which was quite the feat, the guy making greedy little whimpering noises as he slobbered all over them both. It couldn’t have been as much as five minutes since they started, but Lister couldn’t help it; in another few yelps, he was over the edge, and gone.

* * *

The guy had not, Lister noticed, even taken off his trousers. He was going to regret that in a few hours time, or however long his shore leave lasted; Lister had counted at least two orgasms. He didn’t seem to mind; just stood there, adjusting his belt and trying not to look in Lister’s direction. They were back to that script again, unsurprisingly. Like nothing had happened. 

“You know,” Lister said, struggling back into his underpants, “you can get a new pair in that stall by the corner of the Bull and Donkey.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Trousers,” Lister offered, trying to find his own. “They sell ‘em for half a dollarpound. They’ll hardly last a night, but if they don’t, you could always afford another pair.” 

The guy wasn’t listening. He was staring at something on the bedside table, eyes narrowing. Lister turned to see, but couldn’t quite make it out; it was full of pamphlets that he’d picked up from the surrounding shops – quite a few of them were willing to pay to get their advertising out there. How’s that for a marketing plan, Lister groused to himself. “Thinking of joining up?”

“What’s that?”

“The Jupiter Mining Corporation. You’re thinking of joining up?”

“So that’s what ye were staring at! Nah, man. Too much work.”

“It’s good money.”

“So’s this,” Lister retorted, a little defensively. Truth be told, it wasn’t. It wasn’t even bad money. It was barely _money_. 

“Well, if you change your mind-“

“I won’t.”

“-and end up on the Red Dwarf when she comes back here next month-“

“I just said I won’t, all right?”

“Just…!” The strength of his voice made Lister pause. “Just… if you happen to do that, and you come across a second technician Arnold Rimmer…”

Was that _him?_ Was this some sort of invitation? The weirdest, most awkward date proposal Lister had ever been exposed to? He waited for some sort of explanation, but the guy just stopped, and smiled. 

“Well. Don’t be too hard on him, all right?” Before Lister could answer, Rimmer, if that was his name, had slipped back into The Smoke. Lister scratched his thigh, and dug around for the steri-spray. 

“I don’t know who you are, Arnold Rimmer,” he muttered to himself, “but I know yer a smeghead.”

* * *

Rimmer hurried through the slimy streets of Mimas, up Reynold’s Street, past Gaiman and through the Stross overpass, running through the evening in his mind. 

He really, really, _really_ ought to stop doing this. 

All right, so he wasn’t hurting anyone, and it was perfectly legal, and he paid well… but at the same time, deep in what he had to call his bones, it didn’t feel _right_. He was, he supposed, sticking his nose, quite literally in some cases, into other people’s business. This wasn’t his place. Nor, for that matter, was it his time. Then again, what was his time was a purely academic question at this point, and Rimmer had never been much of an academic. 

“Heading home,” he said, curtly, knowing the ship would comply no matter how he phrased himself. As he moved, little subtle shifts rippled over his hair and clothes (he kept his face; he always did – perhaps it was vanity), straightening and lengthening curls, morphing his shirt and trousers into one, gilded, leathery, fur-lined and padded whole. By the time he reached the Wildfire, parked discretely at the edge of the spaceport, he was wearing his sunglasses again.

It was surprising how many Listers ended up in this sort of trade. They all seemed happy, despite rarely, if ever, successful, yet they all, to a person, ended up joining the JMC in the end. Then getting frozen. Then waking up again. Some with Arnold Rimmers, some without. And if _this_ Arnold Rimmer couldn’t be there for them…

_I make up for him,_ Lister had once told him, speaking of a better version of himself. The stupid git thought it all balanced out; that there was some sense of fairness in the universe. Rimmer knew there wasn’t. All you could do, really was try your best to even things out. Anyway, Lister had been wrong. He didn’t’ make up for anyone. 

Any Lister was enough, all by him, them or herself. 

Rimmer, now fully Aced, climbed into the cockpit, set the controls, and headed for another Mimas. There were people to make up for.


End file.
